The 5-year-old's eyes glimmer with wonder and whimsy. But for Gutierrez, they are more so questions of why.

Why him? Why this?

"It's a very lonely feeling," Cain's mother said in a remorseful tone.

Cain has autism, and the Gutierrez family is not alone.

Discovering the disorder

Cain latches his arms around his mother and stares through her, pressing his cheek against hers.

He rubs slowly, and the two embrace in a moment of "I love you."

This physical touch is his way of communicating those three, one-syllable words.

The thought of possibly never hearing Cain utter more than a few words frightens Gutierrez, but she knows her son may never speak full sentences.

Cain is Gutierrez's first-born, born four weeks early in November 2006. He's also a non-verbal, moderate-level autistic child, diagnosed in May.

"I had always heard about autism, but I never thought it would be Cain," Gutierrez said as she watched her son interact with her 3-year-old, Uriah, who has already set more developmental milestones than Cain.

How prevalent?

Estimating the number of Crossroads children who are like Cain is difficult.

That is because tracking regional or even state data of autism prevalence does not exist, said Michael Rosanoff, the associate director of public health research and scientific review at Autism Speaks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network tracks autism only in certain states, he said.

"We tend not to report individual state statistics because they are highly variable and not necessarily due to differences in risk for autism across different states," Rosanoff said.

Most states look at the generalized 1 in 110 statistic because it comes from a representative sample, he added.

Early signs

For Cain's family, the fear that he may be part of a growing statistic came when he was just a year old, which is when most parents notice their child's developmental delays.

Cain, who carries many of his mother's soft features, began to lash out in unsolicited tantrums. Also, his speech was delayed and he had trouble focusing visually and mentally.

Gutierrez constantly fights on the frontline of her mind just trying to understand autism.

Dreams of her child growing up to be anything he wants to be have changed to a simple hope that one day he can speak a few words or be mainstreamed into public school.

"There is the 360 of having to change those dreams," she said, wiping tears from her lashes. "It's very hard to accept."

Making sense of a mystery

Spilling out toys from a bag, Cain chooses not to play make-believe like most kids his age. Instead, he calculates how he places each on the floor softly, as if not to hurt them.

After about 10 minutes, he has lined about eight toys by size and color. He even meticulously swaps out some toys last minute and rearranges them to make sure it's just right.

This characteristic is what makes Cain, Cain.

This is his niche in autism, which is part of a spectrum of three developmental disorders, said Dr. Patricia Harkins, a developmental pediatrician from San Antonio who diagnosed Cain.

Autism disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, Rett's syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder-NOS, and Asperger's disorder have made up the spectrum for the past few years, but when the updated diagnostic manual is released in 2013, it will focus on only three: autism disorder, Asperger's and pervasive developmental disorder-NOS, Harkins said.

"There is a lot of genetics to it," Harkins said about autism research.

A study released in 2010 was retracted shortly after being published in a British medicine journal because it falsely concluded vaccinations were the cause of autism.